The MJ ran a piece focusing on our plan to reinvent the way we recruit employees who deliver vital adult social care to our most vulnerable citizens, which was launched by West Midlands Employers and the West Midlands branch of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS).

The article says local government has shown it can move faster and better when the bureaucracy is stripped away and decision-making is made at the local level. It talks about our #ComeBackToCare, #StepUpNow and #TimeToCare campaigns which were launched in response to the first difficult weeks of the covid-19 crisis, as adult social care teams were coming under huge amount of pressure to deliver an emergency response and continue to protect older and disabled adults across the region.

The campaign was initially aimed at attracting former social workers (and related professions) back into council work in the Midlands, then at final year social work students who had a willingness to support and a hunger for experience, and last week we launched our final campaign to attract social care staff of all kinds into the independent care sector.

Manny Sandhu is Director of Leadership, OD & Resourcing at WMEmployers, says “Candidates are being placed as we speak with their local council or have joined a new talent bank of candidates with experience, expertise and commitment to support care commissioners and providers in the medium to long-term.

“Our recruitment campaigns have been entirely local responses to a local need. Local government has shown it can move faster and better when the bureaucracy is stripped away and decision making is made at the local level in real time and responding to the reality on the ground.

“This is not a sterile local versus national argument. To deal with some of the major issues we face – from COVID-19 to social inequality – local communities and councils need to work with national government and institutions. Yet the success of our work in the West Midlands has shown that our response to what our citizens need must be locally-managed and nationally supported, not the other way around.”

You can read the article in full here.